European Kingdoms

Germanic Tribes

Sitones
(Suevi)

Normally referred to as a
Germanic tribe, by
the first century BC the Sitones were a relatively small group that
was occupying relatively uncertain territory, probably in
Scandinavia if
Tacitus is to be understood accurately. They would have been
neighboured by the early
Swedes to the south
and the Kvens
to the north.

The Sitones' tribal name is a very simple one to break down. Removing the
Germanic plural, '-on', and also the Latin '-es' plural leaves the core
word, 'sit', meaning 'settlers'. The tribe were 'the settlers'. It suggests
that they had found their home on what seems to have been the border between
fellow Germanics to the south and the 'foreign' Kvens to the north, and had
no plans to migrate anywhere. In fact the name may have been more a
statement of intent than anything, perhaps in the face of Kven resistance to
their settlement.

The Sitones (or Sithones) formed one of the minor constituent tribes of the
vast Suevi
confederation in the first century AD. Their existence was recorded only by
Tacitus, who mentioned that they had a woman as a ruler. While this may not
seem entirely unusual in itself, Saxo Grammaticus in his Gesta Danorum
(History of the Danes) wrote that a German maxim is that it is
shameful to be ruled by a woman. This is evidence that the Sitones were not
originally German. More probably, they were
Celts who had
either gained a German ruling class or who had simply succumbed to the
inevitable, and in a world that was becoming increasingly dominated by
Germanic tribes to the east of the Rhine, they fitted in and became Germanic
in dress and eventually language. The other alternative is that they were
Kvens. Tacitus seems to support this with his positioning of them alongside
the early Swedes and by his claim that they were ruled by a woman. Clearly
they practise the same form of matrilineal descent as the later
Picts
of northern
Britain.

The Suevi were a confederation of Germanic peoples that came into existence by
the first century AD, and perhaps earlier. Their number included the tribes of
the Alemanni,
Angles,
Hermunduri,
Langobards,
Marcomanni,
Quadi,
Semnones, and
Warini, and
perhaps also the
Heruli
too. None of these tribes were what could be considered 'front line' tribes,
living along the border with the
Roman
empire. Instead they were arrayed behind a large number of other tribes
which were better known and better attested by Roman writers. The Suebic
tribes remained a little more obscure, at least until they came into direct
contact with the empire, and many of the more minor tribes that made up the
confederation were almost entirely unchronicled.

(Additional information by Edward Dawson, from the Complete Works of
Tacitus, Alfred John Church, William Jackson Brodribb, & Lisa Cerrato,
and from External Link:
A Theory of
Civilisation, Philip Atkinson.)

AD 98

Writing around this time, the
Roman
writer Tacitus mentions the
Suevi, listing
their constituent tribes which cover the larger part of Germania. Clearly in the
century and-a-half since their first appearance on the Rhine they have expanded
considerably. Noted for their custom of twisting their hair and binding it up
in a knot (called the Suebian knot), they comprise the
Langobards,
the Semnones
('oldest and noblest of the Suebi'), 'the seven tribes of Jutland and Holstein': the
Angles,
Aviones,
Eudoses,
Nuitones,
Reudigni,
Suardones, and
Warini, then
the Hermunduri
on the Elbe, three tribes along the Danube,
Marcomanni,
Naristi,
and Quadi,
followed by the
Buri and
Marsigni.

Early Germanic peoples in Scandinavia were clustered for the
most part along the coasts of southern Scandinavia, and only
began to expand inland from around the third century AD or so

Then there is a mountain range that separates part of the Suebi, beyond which,
along the Vistula, are the constituent tribes of the
Lugii, the
Harii,
Helisii,
Helveconae,
Manimi,
and Naharvali.
Then come the Cotini
(or Gotini, as Tacitus calls them), Gutones (clearly the Cotini again, although
perhaps a separate division of them),
Lemovii, and
Rugii along
the Baltic Sea, the various divisions of the Suiones
(Swedes),
and last but not least the non-Germanic
Aestii,
and beyond them the Sitones, both of which are on the Baltic coast.